The Texans home field advantage manifesto

Here’s my MacGyver’d water bottle from last game: Finish water, insert pennies and dimes, put top back on. Shake it, bang it. Note, if you hit it hard enough it will break. (This I know).

Very sorry to hear that Texans defensive coordinator, Wade Phillips, will be out for 7-10 days to have surgery relating to his kidney and gall bladder. Not so much for the Texans team–I don’t much want to talk about the football implications of this–but I think the team will be fine. But it seems to me that the only surgery that’s minor is surgery that is the kind not done to you. (If you want to send him well wishes and are on Twitter, the Texans will give him Tweets that are hashtagged #GetWellWade)

The word, “Manifesto” means “a written statement declaring publicly the intentions, motives, or views of its issuer.” My point of view? I want Texans to maintain the home field advantage through the playoffs. Our home field already is an advantage. I believe we can make it even better, and I will explain how.

Texans fans are just now starting to understand their home field power:

Andre Johnson (on how excited he is to hear how loud the stadium is)

“Man, I can only imagine. I know it’s going to be rocking. I can tell you that. It will all just be excitement from clinching a playoff spot and everything, but I’m pretty sure it’ll be rocking on Sunday.”

As you know, fans are supposed to show up early, stay until the end, be loud when the team is on defense and quiet when the team is on offense. The Atlanta game was a great example of showing up early. You could feel the energy in the stadium before kickoff.

Reliant Stadium has the potential to be the loudest stadium in the league. By far. Because of the retractable roof design, the stadium is very vertical and most of the seats, even at high levels are close to the field. The endzones are so close that pregame you can talk to players, and the players can easily hear you. The Texans in the past have said that the stadium noise is the same whether the roof is open or closed, though that doesn’t make sense to me.

Though it’s been loud in Reliant before this season, during the Atlanta game was loud throughout the entire game. It’s been hard for fans to bring that energy all four quarters in the past because the defense struggled. Hard to yell loud when the defense can’t get off the field.

Here’s a video (actually near where I sit, I think) of how loud the stadium was at the final play against Atlanta:

[You can barely hear it, but after the game they are playing that awful Rock and Roll Part 2 song that should be banned from all stadiums for the reasons I discussed in the previous post. Please Texans music people, do not do that anymore. Millions of non-cliche, upbeat songs out there to choose from.]

Breaking down the video–How we can be louder on defense:

Okay. That is loud. It could be louder. Much louder. For example, in the video, you see one guy who is clapping and one guy who is swinging around a towel. Which guy is louder? Obviously the guy who is clapping.

You have three ways to be loud: 1. Yelling/loud whistling; 2. With your hands; 3. With you feet. If you are at the game, and the Texans are on defense, and you aren’t doing at least two of these things, you aren’t being loud enough. I mean, if Texans guard Mike Briesel can play 3 quarters of a game on a broken leg, the least we can do is do our best efforts in being loud.

Pick your favorite defensive player. They likely play with maximum effort. Do the same with your fandom loudness.

The NFL prohibits bringing noisemakers into the game. You can fashion your own noise makers from items found inside the stadium. For example, you can put pennies and dimes into water bottles and the metal beer bottles. The water bottles are nice because they have a cap. The beer bottles don’t have a cap, but you can make sure the coins stay inside by 1. Stomping on the top of the bottle to seal it; 2. Stuffing napkins in the top; or 3. Plugging it up with your hand. The metal bottles be VERY loud, so be kind and do not rattle too close to your neighbor’s ear. I also suggest not doing it too close to the ushers because they might confiscate. The bottles are a way to maximize noise with minimal effort.

Use the things around you to be loud. The people in the front row of the endzones can bang the padding. The people next to aisle can find things to bang into the rails. You can also bang on top of the seat in front of you with your hand. I wear western boots to games because they are thematic and comfortable. They also make a loud noise if you stomp ‘em.

Being quiet on offense–This is harder, just as important.

The Texans have had the good fortune to have good things happen on offense more often than not. When that happens, people at the stadium obviously get very excited. The problem with that is that excited sometimes equals loud. It probably doesn’t help that after each first down, the loud speaker guy says, “And that’s another Texans….” and then the crowd responds, “first down!” That might be fun, but that is loud, and sometimes the offense has trouble hearing the next play.

One thing the Texans do to get the crowd to quiet down is to put on the Jumbotron the phrase, “QUIET, OFFENSE AT WORK.” Well, that will work out just fine when facing the Panthers and Titans because there’s not too many of those fans that visit Reliant. But once the playoffs start, especially if a team like the Steelers come to Reliant, there will be a lot more road fans than normal. When that happens, the all that the Jumbotron quiet message does is to get the visiting fans to get louder.

So Texans fans need to be quiet without the reminder. We need to practice that before the playoffs.

Part of home field advantage is for the offense to be able to function well without a lot of noise. As it is, they had a few more pre-snap penalties than usual during the Atlanta game with a combo of sometimes too much noise and a new cadence from TJ Yates.

So be quiet on offense. Get others to be quiet on offense. Please. Colts fans are good at this because they’ve had a lot of playoff practice. We need to start somewhere.

Do this for the fans who can’t be at Reliant.

There are tons of fans who wish they could be at the game but can’t–distance, finances, work, logistics, illness, whatever. I hear from a lot of Texans fans serving our country abroad. So yes, with your ticket, you can do what you want but if you are a true fan, you should do what is right. If you can’t go, make sure your ticket gets into the hand of a good Texans fan. And if you are there, do everything you can to support the team for yourself, your team, and all the fans that can’t be there but wish they could be.

If you are not at the game…

All over the country, groups of Texans fans are forming to watch games together. You are not alone though in the past, sometimes Texans fans could feel that way. A good place to find some of these watch parties is over at the TexansTalk.com forum in the Texan Tailgate section.

Here’s an example of New York City Texans fans coming together. This is what I heard from @NYC_Texan (Rohith) earlier this year about his efforts to find Texans community:

I grew up in Sugar Land – went to Rice University and now work for a large strategy consulting company.

I moved to NY about 4 years ago and was going from bar to bar – usually going to the opposing team’s local bar just to get the game with sound. Most apartment buildings in Manhattan have strict rules against satellite dishes so I could not get the Sunday ticket, plus it was fun to wear my Texans jersey and get cursed out by the opposing teams fans.

A year ago I did extensive searches of bars who were the “official” bar of the NFL teams. I noticed almost every team had a local establishment except the Texans. In fact, one bar said “are you kidding” when referring to the local bar for the Texans – quite irritating. (that site has now been shut down apparently)

We went from bar to bar last year calling the bars ahead of time and asking if they would show it with sound. Most of the time we compete against the Jets and Giants so its hard to get the game. One time we got overtaken by a random X games group.

So, I posted on the Texans message boards and posted on various social networking sites about wanting to find a bar with the NFL package to house us. I got an email from a fellow Texan (Marc Shapiro) who owned Idle Hands Bar (@IdleHandsBar) on Avenue B between 2nd and 3rd street who said they just started this bourbon bar and wanted to invite us to check them out. They have leather couches, all the scotch and bourbon you could want and significant beer/drink specials specifically for Texans. (margaritas, Lone Star beer etc).

We have a distribution list of about 20 people and usually we get about 10-12 people out. As the team continues to improve and create a following, I am sure we will grow.

If you are having watch parties in your community, I suggest leaving that info at TexansTalk.com. Or mention it in the comments here. At some point, I’d like to get a nationwide list of Texans-friendly watch spots.

My favorite part of the internet is its ability to build community. I was a huge Oilers fan back in the day, and I’d watch Oilers games with my friends. But I didn’t have a ton of connection with other Oilers fans other than my friends. What has been interesting about the rise of the Texans in the internet age is how strangers have become friends through their shared love of a team that has struggled so much over the years. It’s happened through tailgates, through message boards, through blogs, through Twitter and Facebook and the like.

One theme of this Texans season has been “Next Man Up.” Who cares what the outside world thinks? (Rivers McCown’s article called “Defying the Narrative” is perfect on this point). Our fanbase is the Next Fan Up, and we are going to help will this team to more wins.